Predictions of an imminent collapse of Chinese politics are today commonplace. However, Australian Professor John Keane explores a radically different alternative in his thought-provoking book When Trees Fall, Monkeys Scatter: Rethinking Democracy in China.

China, he argues, is a one-party-dominated political system whose surprising levels of public support and resilience in the face of serious economic, environmental and social problems suggest that it is more durable than most outside observers suppose. China is not an ailing “autocracy”, a case of “crony capitalism” or a blindly repressive “authoritarian regime”. The rulers of China are in fact experimenting with a wide range of locally-made democratic tools designed to win the trust and loyalty of their subjects.